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[2E] Totems questions

Having run today whole Totem Hunting plotline for my players pack – and not founding answers in WtF 2E corebook and The Pack books – I go with them to forum community. So here are starting questions:

Can individual characters have their own Totem? Beside Tribe Firstborn, Lodges Totem and their Pack Totem? Are there some limitations? Most players ask me about wolf spirits for their own characters. If yes, can character make familiar-like sort, with personal Totem embodying physical animal? Can their be your Spirits Touchstones?

How does pack get bond with Totem? I’m not asking about finding or convincing Totem ( those are part of Siskur-Dah on Totem spirit ) – but how this mystical bond is sealed? Is this some kind of Pack Ritual? Or just new Totem blink and it’s now sealed with characters?

How does bond with Totem feel? Can it’s worshipers call him any time? Is he hanging over any pack member all the time? Does Totem hear thoughts of it’s adherents - or pack members need to shout his name to empty air?

Can individual characters have their own Totem? Beside Tribe Firstborn, Lodges Totem and their Pack Totem? Are there some limitations? Most players ask me about wolf spirits for their own characters. If yes, can character make familiar-like sort, with personal Totem embodying physical animal? Can their be your Spirits Touchstones?

On p.108 in the WtF 2E core for Totem merit it starts: "Your character has a relationship to a totem spirit, either personally or a pack totem." So yes, you can have a personal totem.

But it continues: "Note that any character can only have five points of this merit." So that would be the limitation. Basically by RAW it can only grant a 1 experience cost benefit.

Comment

[*]Can individual characters have their own Totem? Beside Tribe Firstborn, Lodges Totem and their Pack Totem? Are there some limitations? Most players ask me about wolf spirits for their own characters. If yes, can character make familiar-like sort, with personal Totem embodying physical animal? Can their be your Spirits Touchstones?

I'm surprised, wyrdhamster. Yes, they can have personal totems. Yes there are limitations. Yes you can have spirit buddies, this is in the Pack. And yes they can be spirit touchstones, a personal totem is the second example.

[*]How does pack get bond with Totem? I’m not asking about finding or convincing Totem ( those are part of Siskur-Dah on Totem spirit ) – but how this mystical bond is sealed? Is this some kind of Pack Ritual? Or just new Totem blink and it’s now sealed with characters?

An agreement. Remember that in second edition, the totem is not the 'head' of the pack anymore. The pack is part of werewolf life, and they bring the spirit into it. How they do so will depend on the pack.

[*]How does bond with Totem feel? Can it’s worshipers call him any time? Is he hanging over any pack member all the time? Does Totem hear thoughts of it’s adherents - or pack members need to shout his name to empty air?[/LIST]

They aren't worshipers, that's a Lodge thing. A pack likely can't call their totem anytime unless it or they have it as a power or have set up some method to do so. It can hang over a pack member all the time, but it isn't forced to, it can just sit in a locus all the time if that's the kind of spirit it is. For instance, the spirit of a bank isn't going to go out hunting with players and is likely to just sit at the bank it represents, but you may be able to contact it at any time through ATMs related to that bank, via minor messenger spirits. A spirit of the Mongolian Killing Words may hang around the Ithaeur at all times because he's the one that unleashed it from its fetish prison and it is the only one capable of learning the Killing Words. If you want to get in touch with it, call the Ithaeur. Other packs or totems might have shortcuts in communicating with one another, or they might not have thought that far and have to do it the long way.

Comment

Well, what Numina does the Spirit have? If it is about "watching over things" it should have something like Clairvoyance already. It can use that in its Pack just as easily.

In short, I could be wrong, but Totems don't get any inherent benefits simply by being a Totem. They do, however, get whatever perks you "buy" for them with the aggregate of the Pack's Totem dots.

Their stats are directly derived from investment of those in the Pack, in the form of its Points = Attributes, and additional Numina for every 4 Points.

Originally posted by WtF p.192

OMEN TRANCE
Once every 24 hours, the spirit may enter a trance in order to gain a glimpse of the future. The Numen costs one Essence if the spirit is using it on its own behalf or 3 Essence if it is searching for omens for another. If the activation roll succeeds, the spirit sees a vision of an event sometime in the next week, with a bias toward warnings of danger.

Seems like a good initial Numen, or possibly

Originally posted by WtF p.192

IMPLANT MISSION
This Numen grants a mortal a vision of a task the spirit wishes him to accomplish as well as a mystical determination to see it through. The spirit pays 2 Essence and rolls Power + Finesse. On a success, the subject receives a short vision of whatever the spirit wishes him to do and is under the Obsessed Condition regarding carrying that mission out.

Both fit the themes of watching out and a spirit of justice. Implant Mission could both be used to keep the pack "safe", and to further the cause of justice.